God came to the earth to be mingled with man, in the man Jesus Christ. Hence, Jesus Christ is the beginning of the mingling of God and man. This mingling made the production of the Body of Christ, which is the church, possible. Christ is the Head of the Body, the church. The church is the enlargement of the principle of God being mingled with man. This enlargement results in the Body of Christ.
In the Gospels, the mingling of God and man produced the Head, Christ. In Acts, the enlargement of the mingling of God and man produced the Body of Christ. God mingled with the man Jesus, a Galilean, and this Jesus became the Head of the Body; God also mingled with many Galileans, and they became the Body of the Head. May God enlighten us in our reading of the Bible to enable us to see that the first five books of the New Testament show a clear picture of a great person. The four Gospels show this great person, and the book of Acts shows the enlargement of this great person.
The book of Acts is a record not merely of the activities of the apostles, but it is a record of the activities of the Body of Christ on earth. We need to connect Acts with the Gospels to see a complete man, the Head and the Body. This man is a mysterious, universal man, who is God yet man and man yet God. He is also the mingling of divinity and humanity. There are many instances in these five books that show the mingling of God with man and man with God. The Gospels speak of Christ on earth; however, His Body was not yet produced. In Acts Christ as the Head is in the heavens, but the Body He produced is on earth. We need spiritual eyes to see that this great person as the Head is in the heavens and that His Body is on earth. However, the Head is not separate from the Body; rather, in this universe they are connected from the heavens to the earth and from the earth to the heavens. The book of Acts is a record of the enlargement and continuation of the mingling of God and man. Christ is not a person with a group of associates; He is the Head with a Body.
The truth concerning the Body of Christ is exceedingly mysterious. Our knowledge of this mystery is very limited, and our experience is almost negligible. Therefore, to use a Chinese expression, when we speak of the Body of Christ, we are measuring the ocean with a spoon. We cannot comprehend the Body of Christ with our mind; we can only comprehend and speak concerning the Body of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit within us. What is the Body of Christ? Some may say that the Body of Christ is the church, and others may say that the Body of Christ is the aggregate of all the believers, all who belong to Christ. These definitions are not wrong doctrinally, but they fall short of experience.
There may be a group of believers in a locality, but there might not be the practical church life, the practical Body life, the expression of the Body of Christ, in that locality. This means that we may all be believers, who are saved by grace, but in terms of experience and practicality, we may not have much of an expression of the Body of Christ; we may not have the reality of the Body of Christ.
The church is the enlargement of the mingling of God and man, the enlargement of Christ. If there is no mingling of God with man and man with God, there can be no church. Though many believers have God’s life in them, this mingling is not seen in their living; the practical expression of the mingling of God and man is not among them. I believe it is easier for us to understand the Body of Christ from the perspective of the mingling of God and man. We may be genuinely saved, zealously serving the Lord, and diligently caring for the church, but the mingling of God and man may not be present within us. Many children of God preach the gospel zealously, but the mingling of God and man is not present within them; instead, man’s zeal and diligence are present. They preach the gospel out of themselves; the element of God is not in their gospel preaching. They may even speak of God while they preach, but in their actions and speech there is only man’s element, not God’s.
In the Gospels we cannot find one instance in which the Lord did something out of Himself as a Nazarene; God was in Him in all things and did everything with Him. We can say that the Lord made every move with God; the life He lived was the living of the mingling of God with man and man with God. In the same principle, the move of every apostle for the preaching of the gospel in Acts was the moving of God and man, the move of God mingled with man; God could not be separated from man’s move. When Peter moved, God moved; when Paul moved, God moved; when Stephen moved, God also moved. We cannot separate the apostles from the Lord; every aspect and detail of their move in the gospel and work were mingled with God. When they stood up to speak, God was within them doing His works. This is similar to the experience of the Lord Jesus when He was on earth (John 6:57; 5:19). The apostles could say that their preaching of the gospel was not their own work; it was the work of the One who died, resurrected, and was living in them. Therefore, if there is the mingling of God and man, there is the Body and there is the reality. This reality is the expression of the Body.